


Words Not Said

by RavenCurls



Category: The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire, Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Miscommunication, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25778617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenCurls/pseuds/RavenCurls
Summary: He led the way to the Suicide Canal.  He offered to take her bag which she declined politely.  The walk itself took about two minutes, two minutes of silence that felt more like two hours.  He wondered if she would deduct the two minutes from the five minutes that he had asked for.He had no reason to be that nervous, yet he was.
Relationships: Elphaba Thropp/Fiyero Tigelaar
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Words Not Said

“Elphaba? Can we talk?”

He saw the way her eyes her eyes widened, the way she froze at his words as if he was asking her to do something against her will - perhaps not to submit a school assignment, to skin a rabbit, or to strip to her chemise in public. 

He waited for an answer.

“I got to go,” she said after a while. Her hand went to the strap of her messenger bag, worrying it. 

“Go? Where are you going?”

“The library. I’m going to the library.”

“The library is closed for renovation, remember?”

“I’m meeting Nessa.” She pursed her lips, afraid to say more.

“Nessa? But I just saw her on her way to her lesson.”

“I mean, Galinda. Galinda wants to meet me. She wants to …” she lost her train of thoughts when Fiyero cradled her arm with a hand. “I’m …” Her eyes darted around, looking for an escape route.

“I just need five minutes of your time,” he said softly. “Just five minutes. No more. Please.” He pleaded with his eyes. Couldn’t she spare him even five minutes?

She swallowed, nodded, yet Fiyero could sense the reluctance oozing out of her pores. The corridor was filled with students, chatting with their friends and Fiyero definitely did not want the conversation to take place here, where everyone could overhear every single word, scrutinize it, and gossip about it.

“Can we go somewhere to talk?” Somewhere less crowded. Somewhere with more privacy. The words that he did not say. Another nod, though her eyes remained wide. They reminded him of the last time he was at the Thousand Year Grassland, the eyes of the badly mauled deer before his father put it out of its misery with a single shot to its heart.

He led the way to the Suicide Canal. He offered to take her bag which she declined politely. The walk itself took about two minutes, two minutes of silence that felt more like two hours. He wondered if she would deduct the two minutes from the five minutes that he had asked for. 

He had no reason to be that nervous. Not reason at all, yet he was.

There was a breeze blowing in at the Canal, and a lock of her hair escaped the confines of her ponytail, dancing wildly in the wind. Fiyero itched to touch it, to curl it around his finger, to tuck it behind her ear. He reached out a hand and she seemed to know what he was thinking of, and she quickly took a step back before she tucked the hair in herself and he dropped his hand.

“Elphaba,” he paused. He had been trying to find an opportunity to talk to her for days now, and now that he finally did, he did not know how to start, what to say. “I… school has been crazy lately, hasn’t it?”

She nodded, her eyes dropping to the ground, the tip of her shoe digging into the grass.

“With all this craziness, we haven’t exactly been spending a lot of time together. I know that part of it is my fault and I’m sorry…”

She shook her head.

“I mean …”

“I understand,” she blurted.

“What? You do?”

“It’s alright, Fiyero. You don’t have to explain.”

“I don’t have to… wait, I’m sorry, what am I supposed to explain?” He took a step toward her, and she backed off.

“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s alright.” She raised a hand. 

“I don’t get you …”

“I mean… I understand. And you don’t have to apologise. It’s not your fault.”

“My… what?”

“I’m glad we have this conversation, Yero,” she said, although he could not even hear a smidge of gladness in her voice. “I’ll let the rest know.” She turned, ready to leave. 

He grabbed her arm without knowing. She winced at the touch, but she did not yank her arm away.

“About what?”

She flailed her free arm helplessly. “That’s why you brought me here, isn’t it? To end it. Officially.”

“To end…” Realisation dawned on him. “Wait. So you think that’s the reason I was looking for you? Because I wanted to initiate a breakup? With you?”

She kept quiet, but her face said it all.

He burst out laughing.

“Elphaba,” he shook his head, amused at how the situation had evolved. “How can you know that I want to break up with you when I didn’t even know it myself?”

The look on her face was priceless.

“Elphaba,” he took a step closer, the grin on his face widening. “I am not breaking up with you. Not even if you want me to.”

She blinked, the confusion still all over her face.

“I …” He shook his head again, unable to find the words. He cupped her face, his thumb brushing against her cheek before he tipped his head and kissed her on her lips, soft and lingering at first, and then hot and searing, hoping that his kiss would be able to convince her what his words could not. It took moments before Elphaba responded. Her lips softened and her hand went to his biceps, her fingertips tentative over his heart.

Oz, he missed kissing her. It had only been three weeks, but he felt as if he had been stranded in the middle of the desert for a long, long time. He broke the kiss reluctantly, pressing his forehead against hers as he tried to catch his breath. There were things that he needed to say. 

“You silly girl. Is that why you have been so moodified recently? And avoiding me?” He tipped her chin up when she looked at the ground again. “Elphaba, look at me. Why would you think that I’d want to end our relationship? And here I am thinking that I must have done something wrong, that I have made you mad somehow.”

He cupped her cheek again, unable to stop himself from touching her. 

“Why didn’t you say anything when you thought that I was going to break up with you?”

Anger flashed across her eyes.

“Why? And beg you to stay?” She took a step back.

“Oz no! Of course, I am not asking you to beg for … whatever you … “

Her next statement took him by surprise.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” 

“No, I didn’t.” And all this while when she had been avoiding him.

“Yes, you did.”

“I did? When did I do that? 

“You stopped meeting us for lunch. You stopped joining us for our sessions at the Canal. You were always in a hurry, always have one errand or another to run. There’s always somewhere to go. You always looked away from me.”

“I … “ he remembered now. “Oz…. “ he smacked his head. “I got a reason. A very valid reason.”

She cocked her head, waiting for him to elaborate.

“But I can’t tell.” 

She folded her arms. 

“You got to believe me.”

She raised her brows.

“You’ll be mad at me if you know.” He looked at the expression on her face, and he realised that she would be mad at him no matter what.

“I… ” he ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. “I got something to confess. Promise me that you will not be angry.”

She nodded.

“I failed the last History assessment.” 

“How could – “

“See?” he raised his hands in surrender. “You’re mad at me.”

“It’s an essay question, Yero. We went through the chapters before. There’s no way you can fail.”

“But I did. I read the question wrongly, alright? I thought that it was asking for something else and I wrote an essay on something that is totally off tangent. Five thousand words of off-tangent. I was so confident when I submitted my answers. Doctor Dillamond said that I would have gotten an A if that was what he was asking for.” His shoulders dropped at the thought.

Elphaba could not help but laugh at the helplessness on his face.

“Dr D took pity on me, and he gave me a project assignment to make up for the grade. A fifty thousand-word essay on how the popularity of the different religion changes in Quadling during the years when the land was mined for rubies. And I have to submit it in five days.”

“That was why I couldn’t spend any time with you, or with anyone else for that matter,” he continued. “I have to spend all my time in those few days in the library. And my essay has to be good enough to get an A. It is hard when you are dating the smartest girl in school, you know. Everyone expects you to be smart too.”

“You are smart.”

“Not academically smart,” he corrected her.

“You could have told me,” she said. “I would have helped.”

He shook his head. “Doctor Dillamond agreed to the makeup project on the condition that I have to do it on my own.”

“And I thought…”

It was his turn to raise his brows.

“It’s not just that, Yero. You were different even before that.”

“Different?”

“You stopped… “ she raised a hand and retracted it after a moment. “You behaved as if we are not… as if we are just … friends.” She looked down again. “You stopped sitting next to me. You stopped holding my hand. And …” She paused and bit her lip. “You stopped telling me that you love me.”

“But I thought you don’t like it!” Elphaba looked at him in surprise. “I thought that you find me too needy, too handsy. And whenever I told you that I love you, you will just roll your eyes and say ‘I know’.” He mimicked her eye-rolling unsuccessfully. 

“But I do know.”

“I just thought that you don’t like me to be affectionate and that you are embarrassed by my actions.” 

“I’m not embarrassed by you. I’m just not … oh Lurline… I …” she chewed her lower lip as she took a step toward him and wrapped her arms around him. She buried her head in his chest, her hands gripping the back of his shirt and took a deep breath.

Fiyero wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her hair. It was moments like this that he was reminded of the fact that despite her constant sarcasm and regular outbursts, she was not good with words and absolutely terrible in expressing her feelings. And the girl that he was in love with had grown up thinking that love was a commodity, something that she could only catch glimpses of, and that someone like her only deserved scraps and pieces of it and not a single bit more.

He ran a finger along the shell of her ear and played with the errant lock of dark hair, twirling it around his finger.

“I think we make the most ridiculous pair, Elphaba. Total opposites and definitely incompatible. We’ve been together for less than two months and we actually screwed up more than half of the time. But I guess what it means is that things can only get better.”

She scoffed.

“You know, there are other things that you can say besides ‘I know’. Saying ‘me too’ will be good. Saying ‘I love you too’ will be better. How about ‘I love you more than I love my books’? But I guess I am pushing my luck, yeah?” She chuckled into his chest and he felt her relax.

“I know that you knew it, but I still have to say it. I love you, Elphaba Thropp. I love you even though you are so difficult to understand. I love you even though you drive me crazy constantly. And I’ll love you even if you don’t want me to. I promise.”

She looked up at him, her cheeks dark.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she reached for his hand and interlocked their fingers. He brought her hand to his lips and brushed them against her knuckles.

“I loved you,” he said it again after a while.

“I –“ Elphaba started to roll her eyes, and Fiyero pressed a finger on her lips, and she chuckled at the growing alarm on his face.

She pressed her lips against his, imprinting her impish grin on him.

“I love you too, Yero. And I definitely love you more than some books.”


End file.
